The government is planning to set up a monitoring authority for school education in the lines of the University Grant Commission (UGC), which oversees university and college education in the country.
The move has been prompted by recent recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission (NKC), which has suggested setting up a monitoring authority for school education to supervise the functioning of schools across the country.
The monitoring authority would maintain an updated data on enrollment and dropouts. ?Figures provided by Central and state governments and private schools are highly unreliable. At present, we have to accept the figures given by them, as there is no alternative. Keeping this in view the Knowledge Commission has recommended setting up a monitoring authority for school education to the Prime Minister,? official sources said.
The proposed monitoring authority would also look at whether various government schemes are being properly implemented by the schools along with keeping a tab on the school curriculum. The NKC has also urged the Prime Minister to reduce the role of multiple ministries in the field of school education.
?At the state level, apart from ministry of human resource development, departments like women and child development also interfere in education. Thus we have urged the Prime Minister to keep such bodies away from school education,? sources added.